„ While debate rages over the future of the office, one investor is looking for someone bullish enough to build a 1 million square foot tower near Grand Central Terminal.
The 1920s-era building is 76 percent occupied, but AEW has structured the leases so a buyer can terminate them and demolish the edifice. With special permitting bonuses available under the Midtown East rezoning, a new building could be as large as 950,000 square feet.„
I’m hoping against hope that the 1920s facade gets preserved, with any new office tower rising above. Does the City ever give density bonuses to adaptive reuse projects in order to incentivize preservation?
It does look nice. I’d love to see something akin to @ThreeWentDown 's design for 45 east 45th street.
The preservation and the supertall in one package
I am not aware of any incentivization for adaptive reuse projects to give more FAR for keeping the old facade intact. But even then the window to wall ratio is very small and it’d be very difficult to find tenants that are looking for/wanting open spaces with large windows/lot of natural light. Because of the shape of the current building, the footprint is constricted to the smallest size of the current building in trying to preserve the facade.
Exactly. The current building isn’t going to attract top tenants or fetch high rents, so based purely on economics, the developer should tear it down and build a ground-up Class A office tower. Why waste any amount of their square footage get eaten up by this “lesser” office space? Without some kind of development bonus, there’s very little hope for preservation in these office corridors.
uggghhh I hate this… leave these lovely, pre-war, offices alone!
No touchy
Official link for the photo or the map? The map is just the map by itself by NYC planning, there is no link for it.
Even if built as a supertall, this building will be surrounded on almost all side by skyscrapers that dwarf it.
Count me in the opposition of this one. It works too well in a historic location, pairs with Hemsley very nicely. Sure it’s not the Woolworth or Flatiron, but it’s buildings like this that gives New York it’s character. We should be careful with cases like this, there is plenty of great spots with worse that can come down.
With how small this site is, it very well could end up taller than 1 Vanderbilt and 270 Park.
Not thick though.
Or it could end up fat and squat
Could someone make a list of potential new skyscrapers in Midtown East after the rezoning,please?
(Serious proposals of what it could be,not just what the plan pretends it to be )
I find buildings like 425 Park Ave gorgeous but way too small ,we need more Bloomberg -like Towers.
Just come out of my head:
1.350 Park Ave
2.175 Park Ave
3. 45 East 45th Street
4.343 Madison
5. 250 Park Ave
6. Pfizer Tower
7.405 Park Ave
The Midtown East rezoning doesnt pretend to be anything, the list of “potential” skyscrapers could include quite literally anything that is encompassed by the rezoning. It is a rezoning not some physical plan to manifest a bunch of skyscrapers.
425 Park Ave was built before the rezoning took affect which would not have mattered because it was still built with a FAR of 25. Using 731 Lexington Ave as an equivalent for a redevelop in a lot that is actually included in the MER is also strange because it was built using a FAR of 13 which is smaller relative to the smallest increased buildable FAR of 18 in the MER. Outside of the fact that it is not apart of the MER and was built over a decade before the MER took affect.
45 East 45th St and 343 Madison are not apart of the MER area.
Just because we only know of a few proposals that exist on a few lots doesnt mean there are not serious plans to redevelop other blocks/lots, as I said, the list of potential new developments is possible for any lot/block within the rezoning, nothing is being pretended.
„ The poster child for this, I always say, is 250 Park, which is in a fabulous location and is being offered for sale right now. It’s a building that has a demolition clause in it. I guarantee you, every buyer looking at that building is looking at it as a development site. It will eventually be torn down and replaced by a supertall.“
